My cousin Pooch is 83 now and one of the last ties to my dad and uncles on the Hall side of the family. I was thinking about him as baseball season approaches.

A few months back, Pooch was telling us about growing up during the depression and WWII, and playing baseball as a young boy in southern Illinois. Well, actually, he was telling us about playing stickball. At the time, no one could afford a bat or real ball. They used a broomstick for a bat. And for the ball? They would stuff a sock with old rags and then tape the “ball” tightly with tape his dad brought home from the local coal mine. The tape was similar to duct tape, but sticky on both sides. After taping the “ball” as tightly as he could, he would roll it in dirt to get rid of the stickiness of the outside layer.

There were eight or ten young kids living on his street, counting both boys and girls. They would divide into teams and girls and boys both played. Pooch was the oldest on the block, so he was typically captain of one of the teams. He had a girlfriend at the time and being a smart guy, he usually chose her first for his team. He says it didn’t really matter how they chose the players as no team ever won all of the games.

They played in the street with rocks or pieces of wood for the bases. Occasionally a car came by, but not very often. The ball was so soft, it wouldn’t break any nearby windows and no one needed a glove to catch it. No one could afford a glove in any case. The ball would eventually break after being hit a few times. They would retape the sock and continue. The game would go on all afternoon until they finally got bored, or ran out of tape.

He told me other stories of playing real baseball in hand-me-down uniforms from the local coal-mine team, and then attending games at the local Class D minor league affiliate – the West Frankfort Cardinals. In high school, he made money selling sodas for ten cents a piece at those games, and later working as a ball chaser. He was paid $1.50 per game to retrieve foul balls. He said it was much better than lugging around a case of soda.

The home opener is a week away here in DC. I can’t wait to see the Nats and whether they will make another run to the playoffs this year. Before the game, I’ll be thinking about Pooch and those hot, dusty summers in Southern Illinois, playing stickball, and picking his girlfriend first.

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This blog was based on conversations with Pooch in September of ’17, and also recollections that Pooch had previously written in a family autobiography of his youth in Southern Illinois.

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I don’t think I quite understood the struggle between winter and spring until we moved to the farm. It doesn’t happen every year, and spring always eventually wins, but there’s many a year when winter doesn’t give up without a fight. This seems to be one of those years.

Here at Rohan Farm, I’m much more sensitive to the weather than I was when we lived in the ‘burbs. In the wintertime, that sensitivity is around plowing if it snows tooooo much, loss of power with ice storms, and freezing pipes and water buckets with cold temperature. In the past, we’ve had a horse go through the ice on the pond, lost power for a few days, and plowed snow way more times than I care to remember.

This year, winter hasn’t been bad, but it’s been screwy. After the single digit temperatures of early January, and a busted pipe at the barn, things looked up. Snow totals were minimal, and February was actually unseasonably warm. Then we started March with a wind storm and lost power for almost four days. Since then, it has been unseasonably cold and I am ready for this winter to be over.

Unfortunately, springtime isn’t ready to happen just yet. While yesterday was the official first day of Spring, Old Man Winter decided he wasn’t quite ready to leave, and is socking us with four to eight inches of snow today, or so they say.  There are already three to four inches on the ground, and I think they may have underestimated the total.

The daffodils are up and starting to bloom and the Cherry trees are about to blossom for the tourists. But the pond still has a skim of ice some mornings, and the horses haven’t shed their winter coats.  Today, the daffodils are covered in snow and ice, and the blooms are dying back. I don’t need a ground hog to tell me that spring is still a ways away.  

Both the daffodils and I will survive these waning punches from winter.  This too shall pass.

Billy told me it was the coldest winter Tilghman Island had seen in 100 years. This was while we were discussing the cracked water pipes he found under our house.

I don’t know if it was the coldest winter in 100 years, but I know it was damned cold for lengthy periods of time this year. The kind of cold that just wouldn’t let up. Parts of the Bay froze in early January. Several people had frozen or cracked pipes. Our home on Tilghman was built in the 1890s, and like most older homes, it has any number of issues, water pipes being one of them.



Everyone needs a Billy in their life. He’s the kind of guy that can do just about anything. He’s well known in our community and is everyone’s friend in the winter time, when pipes are likely to freeze. In addition to plumbing, he’s done just about everything. In his past, he was picking cotton at five years old, started laying brick at eleven, and was roofing at twelve. He helped his uncle rebuild a house when he was fourteen . In other lives, he’s been a maintenance man, the foreman of a factory, and delivered computer paper from Philly to the Bronx.

This year, he’s had a bit of tough luck health wise. He had surgery on his knee and is still in a brace. He was also sick with a virus that he probably contracted crawling around under old houses in freezing water. He lost forty pounds in two weeks with that virus. Despite this, he continues to respond to the calls that come to him for help.

He fixed one of our broken pipes in early January, but it turned out there were additional problems. This time he had to go under the house in our two foot high crawl space. A feeder line had frozen and cracked, as well as a line to the hot water heater. Oh, and a line to our washing machine that he had to access through a wall.  

When we arrived yesterday, he’d fixed all of the pipe problems, and already drywalled back over the pipe going to the washing machine. He’ll paint the drywall soon. He also pointed out that we’d lost several shingles in the big windstorm, and he’d take care of those next week. We discussed making some more permanent changes to the pipes under the house this summer, as well as cleaning up the accumulated “stuff” that was under the house. He already knows how he wants to redo the pipes, so they will be less likely to freeze in the future.

Everyone needs a Billy in their life. I’m sure glad he’s in our’s.

Cathy and I are two of the 1.5 million people who have lost power on the East Coast. We are now into day four, sans power. The wind that caused all of this was pretty amazing. It was a Nor’easter and pummeled the east coast. We are lucky here in Virginia that we didn’t have the snow or rain that often accompanies a storm like this.

Wind warnings about the potential for this storm started arriving several days ago, but of course you never know what’s really going to happen. Then it began sometime after midnight Thursday night. Laying in bed, I woke as the wind started growing and growling outside. Small surges at first, but they kept getting bigger and louder. Around three or four, the wind sounded something like a train going by, and the house groaned a bit. Something exploded down the road. A tree falling? A transformer exploding? Not sure, but it didn’t sound good. Sometime after four, the power went out, and then a few seconds later the generator kicked in and started running. Whew….

I had to go to Tysons Corner early that morning, and left home while it was still dark. As I drove our country roads to get to the interstate, there was debris everywhere and trees were down, but luckily, nothing blocking the road. On the interstate, anytime you were on a bridge or in an elevated area, the car was rocked by the winds. Definitely a good day to drive with both hands on the wheel. 

That afternoon, the winds hadn’t really abated. The news said there were gusts up to 70 miles an hour in our area. Driving home over the same country roads, you could now see that several trees had fallen across the road after I had driven through that morning. I counted five between the interstate and our house, and they were now cut up and out of the way. I found out from Cathy that the road to Warrenton was blocked most of the day, due to multiple fallen trees blocking the way. The winds would continue to blow at elevated levels for eighteen hours. Still no power, but the generator keeps running.

On Saturday, Cathy and I walk the fence line. Carmen helps us find one busted up fence section, but that was the only problem. The wind was still blowing, but nothing like Friday. Talking with neighbors, everyone seems to think we will have three or more days without power (**Whoops, past three now**).  There are trees down everywhere, which means there are lots of small problems everywhere. We live in a bit of an isolated area, and the power company fixes those problems that effect the most people first. We know there’s a power line down about 3/4 of a mile away. It is on a path through the woods, and services only our small area. Hmmmm…

The generator keeps running. Power out, and one broken fence section. We are pretty lucky in the big scheme of things. Locally, many of the people we know are without power. Some have generators, some don’t. And, as one friend reminded me on Facebook, after hurricane Maria she was without power for almost three months at their home on Saint Thomas. Another friend has several folk who work for him in Puerto Rico that are STILL without power.  

On the east coast, flights were cancelled, trains were cancelled, schools closed, and the government shutdown. 40 inches of snow fell in New York, it flooded in places from Boston to New Jersey and there were five deaths attributed to this storm.

It’s good to remember our blessings. And to check the gas level in our propane tank that powers the generator.

The generator keeps running….

Last weekend, Cath and I were in Chicago for a Bordeaux Dinner. There were seven of us eating and drinking together for about six hours. It was amazing.

Our good friends Tim and Renee have had this dinner every year for several years, but this is the first time we’ve been able to make it. We’ve always had some sort of conflict, but this year they scheduled it about nine months ahead of time, and we vowed we wouldn’t miss it.

The whole weekend was about friendship, eating, and drinking. We arrived Friday around noon. Dave made it down from Wisconsin Friday evening…. Sushi from a local Japanese market for lunch….wood fired pizza at a wonderful restaurant for dinner…… We generally behaved Friday night and didn’t over serve ourselves. We were looking forward to the Saturday night Bordeaux dinner – Six courses, and several bottles of champagne and wine are not for the faint of heart. You don’t want to go into that kind of dinner not being at the top of your game….. 


Prep work went on for much of Saturday, while dinner activities started around 6:00PM when neighbors Paul and Val joined us. The champagne and fresh oysters were a great way to begin. Renee had the oysters flown in from Massachusetts, and made several accoutrements – Guinness Granita and Radish Mignonette were my favorites. Four dozen oysters and a couple of bottles of champagne later, we adjourned to the table for the serious eating.

Tim started us off with Bourdain’s steak tartare, and the first bottle of Bordeaux. The tartare was everything you could want. Flavorful, complex, and raw. I could have stopped right there, and not eaten anything else, but we moved on to a palate-cleansing salad of baby greens.

A pause, and the hosts disappear for a bit. Then, they return….Braised duck leg with mixed vegetables. I’m in heaven. The duck is braised in Armagnac, a couple head of garlic, and a few other things. Could life be any better? More wine…the conversation gets louder and more engaging. Politics, religion, Chicago weather, food, wine, the Sox, other people we know. Nothing off limits and it’s the kind of conversation that just flows.

We pause a bit, and continue talking. Dishes are cleared, and the cheese course arrives. Six cheeses, including two blues. Time is getting a bit blended now. Not quite a fog, but at this point it’s been over four hours of eating and drinking. We are enjoying life, and appreciating the evening. 

Finally, the last course arrives- Chocolate Truffles. I don’t know where they came from, but they are awesome, and the perfect end to the dinner. We talk a bit more, drink a bit more, and glance at the clock. It’s around midnight now….time is speeding up, but we are slowing down. Cathy and I eventually say goodnight to all, and go to bed and a deep sleep….

The next day is a slow day. Doing dishes, then brunch and some mimosas. Dave heads back to Wisconsin, and now it’s just the four of us. We are in the family room and trying to decide whether to go anywhere, or do anything. Lethargy wins out and we stay put. Talk, catching up, some bad TV, more talk, leftovers, more mimosas. It was the perfect end to the weekend. The kind of weekend you need a weekend afterwards for recovery. I hope we are invited back for next year. 

I’ve only passed out at a parade once, although I suppose that’s once more than most people.

It was the spring of my Yearling (sophomore)  year at West Point. In the summer, I would be going to Germany as a “Third Liuetenant” for a month. In prep for the trip I had to get several shots, and in Army fashion, I received them all on the same day, just after lunch. For some reason I didn’t have a class that afternoon, and ended up taking a nap.Later that afternoon, we had a Regimental parade. I woke up at the ten minute bell (ten minutes until we reported for the parade), quickly dressed, grabbed my rifle and bayonet, and moved out to our formation location. The company formed, dressed, and waited for the drums to start. They finally did and we marched out through the building portal and on to The Plain, the scenic location above the Hudson where all parades take place at West Point.

We arrived at our designated location on The Plain and halted. We went through the normal rigamarole of attention, presenting arms, attention, present arms, and finally we were at Parade Rest. In a minute or two, we’d come back to attention and then present arms for the playing of the National Anthem. So I’m standing there, and then…

The next thing I know, I’m staring upward at a blue sky. What? And do I hear music? Well yes I do! It’s the National Anthem. What the….this is strange….I must have passed out. I slowly look around. Everyone else is, of course, standing at attention and present arms while the Anthem plays. I reach to my side, and sure enough, there’s my rifle on the ground with me. I grab it, and slowly get to my feet, come to attention, and then present arms. There’s a bit of snickering around me, and finally someone asks me if I have any other plans to pass out that afternoon, or whether I’m all right. I whisper that I’m alright. Then, my eyes start to swim a bit…rutro….. I bend my knees and I’m OK. Mercifully, a couple minutes later we start to march off.

After our Company retired from The Plain, our commander dismissed us, and I of course received much good natured hazing. Someone pointed out that the back of my uniform was ripped open. It turned out that when I fainted, I fell backwards on the bayonet of the cadet behind me. It cut a three inch slit in my uniform, and I had a small bruise on my back as a souvenir. The other interesting thing that happened that day was that our company received the high score for the parade. Evidently my fall hadn’t been observed…..

The recent discussions about a big military parade flashed me back to my Plebe year at West Point and an incident during a parade.

Plebe year picture of the author…..

It was the Saturday of the first football game that year. After morning classes (we went to class 6 days a week), our regiment was scheduled to march in a parade before the football game. As our company was forming, an upperclassman by the name of Pope asked me a casual question. When I answered, I didn’t include the word “sir” for some reason. As a Plebe, you always, and I mean always, use the word “sir” when answering. The upperclassman noticed my omission, and immediately said “HALL! After the parade. My room in Full Dress!”

Crap. This was not good. The parade took place, but all I could think about was reporting to Corporal Pope afterwards. As the parade ended, I double-timed back to my room on the 5th floor, left my rifle, checked out my uniform in the mirror, and then reported to Corporal Pope.

“Sir! Cadet Hall reporting as ordered.”

“Cadet Hall. Do you know why I asked you here?”

“Yes Sir!”

“And?”

“Sir! I didn’t say ‘sir’!”

“That’s right. Now, what should we do about this?”

–silence– from me…..

“Cadet Hall – Recite The Days.”

Now, The Days were an exercise in memorization. You had to tell what the events were for that day, that week, and then how many days there were until significant events for the rest of the year, such as:

– the Army Navy Football game – Christmas Break  – 500th night (500 days until graduation for the juniors) – Ring Weekend –   100th Night (100 days until graduation for the seniors) –  Spring Break – and Graduation itself. Of course the number of days to each of those events reduced by one on a daily basis, so you needed to work that in your head as well.

OK…..this wasn’t so bad, I knew The Days and started:

“Sir! The Days. Today is Saturday, 12 September. Today at 1300 hours, Army will beat Holy Cross in Football. Tonight at 1900 hours…”

“Stop Cadet Hall.  You misunderstood me. I want you to recite The Days, but insert the word ‘Sir’ before each word in The Days.

–What– ??

“Sir, I do not understand.”

“Are you deaf Hall? Say The Days, but use the word ‘Sir’ between each word.”

-crap-
“Sir, the, Sir, days, Sir, today, Sir,  is, Sir, 12 September.”…

“Start over Hall.”

“Sir, the, Sir, days, Sir, today, Sir, is, Sir, 12, Sir, September., Sir, Today, Sir, at, Sir, 1300 hours”…

“Start over Hall”

“Sir, the, Sir, days, Sir, today, Sir, is, Sir, 12, Sir, September., Sir, Today, Sir, at Sir, 1300, Sir, hours, Sir, Army, Sir, will, Sir, beat, Sir, Holy Cross”…

“Start over Hall”….

And on it went. I’m not sure how long I spent with Corporal Pope that day, but it seemed like hours. In reality, it was probably about 1/2 hour. I never did get all the way through The Days. I’d make it maybe half way through, maybe even 3/4 through and then slip up and say two words together without the word “Sir” in between.

Finally, he relented. “Stop….. Now, what did we learn here today Cadet Hall?”  

Many responses went through my brain in that instant, most of which can’t be printed here. The smart part of me said:

“Sir, not to forget to say the word ‘Sir’,”

“Get out of my room, Hall.”

I went back to my room and changed out of Full Dress. The football game was about to start and I left the barracks for the stadium. I went a different way so I didn’t have to pass Pope’s room on the way out…

….

It’s funny what triggers a memory. I haven’t thought of that story in years. It’s pretty funny now, and even at the time, I recognized the ridiculousness of what was happening. Just another bump on the road while going through West Point…

I was on my iPhone when the car-dashboard lights started flashing. Hmmmm….OK. Off the phone, and pull to the side of the road. I turn the car off, figuring that I can restart, and the lights will self-correct. Whoops. Bad mistake. The car doesn’t restart. 

It is now 2:30PM and I’m on the side of the road on Route 66, near route 50. Rush hour is about to kick into high gear and I’m forty miles from home. Are you kidding me? All I was trying to do way surprise Cathy and get home early.

I call the first tow truck company – no one available right now. Call the next one – they can be there in 60 minutes. OK, we’ll go with that.  I call Pohankas Lexus, which is only about 5 miles away. Yes, they can fit me in, and they work until 11PM at night. Suddenly, a VDOT truck shows up behind me, puts on his flashers, and puts out traffic cones. Things are looking a bit better.

The tow truck, driven by Sid the biker, actually gets there in 1/2 an hour. Sid hooks up the car, shows me a neat trick to get the car to come out of park and go into neutral, and we are on our way to Pohankas.

Sid drops me off at in processing at Pohankas, while he drops the car in the back. Vernon, the Pohankas guy, checks me in, and takes my info. While he is getting the info, I take a break, go outside, and pay Sid, and give him a tip. I mean, come on, it’s now been 35 minutes since my car broke down, and I’m already at the local Lexus garage.

Vernon finishes in processing me, and asks if I want to wait, or take a loaner car. I tell him a loaner car would be great. He’s going to give me another SUV, but I ask “don’t you have something sportier?”. He says sure, and gives me a Lexus IS300 Sport, with 4,100 miles on it.

I’m back on the road at about 4PM, stop at the Merry Moo store in Marshall to pick up some fresh fish, and am actually home just after 5PM, only about an hour and a half hours after I originally planned to be home. This. Is. Amazing.

Later, Cath and I have a drink, and then make dinner. Salmon with a mustard/dill sauce. Split a bottle of wine, and relax. After dinner, we watch some bad TV.

At 9:45, my phone rings. It’s my buddy Vernon, from Pohankas. A bad battery, and they need to tighten the alternator belt. Oh, and the Lexus has three safety recalls that need to be done. No charge for those, and if I don’t mind, they’ll take care of those as well. Go for it.

It’s now 10PM. I lost an hour and a half today, I’m out about $400, including the tow charge, which USAA, my insurance company will reimburse me, and I had the chance to drive a new Lexus.  

What could have been a pretty bad afternoon/evening, turned out pretty good. I’ve certainly had worse Fridays. I’ll take it. 

The United States Military Academy at West Point can be a beautiful place, just not in the middle of winter. We called the time from January through early March, Gloom Period. It was a combination of the blahs, a lack of color, a lack of light, and coldness. There was a pervasive grayness to life.  

Gloom Period would start just after you returned from the high of being on Christmas Break for two weeks. Seeing your girl, seeing your old friends, and of course partying your butt off. Flying back to school, just after New Years, was enough to put you in a gray mood by itself. This was especially true if you were a Plebe, returning from two weeks of life as a regular person, to five more months as a Beanhead in the Fourth Class System. Another contributing factor to Gloom Period – First semester finals were in early January, just after returning from break.

Photo from the class of 1978 Howitzer (yearbook)

Our uniforms were gray and the buildings were all gray stone. The Hudson River seemed to turn gray, and would sometimes ice up. The surrounding mountains, without leaves on the trees, were granite gray. The sky was often gray, clouds pregnant with snow. If it did snow, the snow turned gray after a couple of days with the road dirt. It was almost like living in a black and white film.

Daylight was noticeably absent durning Gloom Period. During the first formation of the day (Breakfast formation), it was still dark outside. As we walked to the first class in the morning, the dark was lifting, but it still wasn’t light. Walking from your first class to your second, you would finally see full light. Then, during the late afternoon, as you were returning from intramural sports, the evening started filtering in again, and at dinner formation, it was of course, dark.  

The cold of January in New York didn’t help. I come from Illinois originally, but the cold and wind off the Hudson cut right through our overcoats. Daily formations had their own kind of coldness to them. Standing.And.Waiting. And, if you marched punishment tours in the winter, you learned a special appreciation for the cold. 

In late January and early February, spring seems a million miles away at West Point. It of course finally arrives in late March or early April. The sky turns blue, the leaves come out on the trees, the snow disappears, and the weather warms. Gloom Period becomes a memory….. until the next year.

I haven’t thought about Gloom Period for years. Maybe the deep freezes of this January reminded me. Maybe it’s the lack of sunshine lately. I’m not sure. I do know that spring officially starts about 60 days from now. I think I’ll make it.